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My 1000th blog post

This post celebrates the 1000th entry I’ve made to this blog since its inception nearly ten years ago. I hope I’m the only one that’s come close to reading all 1000, because to be honest most of them aren’t very good (particularly the ones that are pre-2008). Since it all began on 5th January, 2005, my blog has changed very much.

My very first post was some kind of rubbish about being teased and misunderstood and taken advantage of. It was whiny, and bitter, and jealous. I even created a new category for the occasion called “Personal Problems”. It all started as a cheeky counter to my then-current girlfriend starting up a blog (once again, this was in a time way before it was cool). I used MSN Spaces – does anyone even remember that? – a small offshoot of MSN Messenger. I wrote several entries, dropping hints to Ivy hoping that she would stumble across it. I kept it hidden from her was because I’ve always had a love of hiding things (messages, treasures) in plain sight for people to discover if they looked a little closer. From my recollection, she wasn’t particularly impressed when she found it, but her reaction did not deter me. I was onto something I loved, and nothing could sway my path.

A lot of my early posts were cut from the same tree as that first one. (Is that a real saying? It sounds like it could be.) They were full of teenaged righteous fury, written from a place of uncertainty of self and tenderness of ego. I make a deliberate effort to avoid reading too many such entries in one sitting, because I wince at the sort of person I was at the time. (It also serves as a reminder for me to be kinder to teenagers who are lashing out, not from being inherently annoying, but from circumstance and struggle.) Through my writing I was able to express myself, and although much of it was borne from pain and self-pity, I was also able to explore new ideas, reflect on what was important in life and write some not-so-bad creative literature.

What started off as a private venture became an online diary to me. And strangely, I got followers. I discovered that one or two, even three people followed my blog in secret, and so I wrote, knowing they would read. At times, I wrote prolifically (stacking up a mind-numbing 40 posts in May 2006), and I felt an obligation to post frequently, partially out of principle, but partially because I had a burning desire to share my identity with the world.

Throughout the following years I kept writing. Sometimes to share things of interest, sometimes as a forum for the exploration of ideas, but largely as a way to keep people updated on my life. Who were these people I was updating? Well to my astoundment, towards the end of 2013 I was averaging about 200 views per month (perhaps averaging 5-14 views per day). All kinds of people from all walks of life were finding their way to my blog. And then when I changed the url, that number dropped to about 30 per month (0-2 views per day). It was a bit of a step back, but it was one I was willing to take in order to renovate the place and reshape its nature. I wanted this to be a space that could be shared, not dominated.

I’ve realised that at the end of the day this is still just my personal weblog, where I can just chill out for a bit and write about life. But it also serves as a medium with which I can share ideas with the world. Through the experiences, stories, and perspectives of myself and others, I can help people to think about life or themselves in a different way. I can inject new ideas about how to think and how to relate to each other into the interwebs, to discuss ideas worth talking about and to challenge unhelpful lifestyles. And I guess I want to entertain as well – to write things that I enjoy reading, and that I hope other people enjoy reading too. And ultimately, I hope that through whatever ramblings I produce, people find their way here and enjoy it enough to stay a while and share in it.

So thank you for coming this far on my journey with me. I wish you all the best with your own, and I hope we can walk together a while longer yet.

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[…] Seems like a milestone to come upon quite quickly. It seemed like only a few months ago I posted my 1000th blog post (when in reality it’s been two and a half years). As I said in that blog post, at the height […]

Greetings friend! A warm welcome to you from this world you've stumbled into. Take a load off and rest easy while we share this space and learn from one another. My name's Xin, and these are my thoughts on life, collections of my experiences, and my reflections on budo.

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